(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky)
(GUY NOIR THEME & SONG)
TR: A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but on the 12th floor of the Acme Building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(THEME UP AND OUT)
GK: It was one of those perfect October days when the trees are red and gold and the air is rich with compost and if you're into the life cycle, this is probably a great time for you. Me, I was sitting in my office at the Acme Building, listening to public radio where it was membership week ...
TK (ON RADIO, WEEPING): Folks, I am sitting here next to a lighted candle and if I don't hear from ten people in the next four hours, I am going to hold my bare hand over that flame. I know it's crazy, but we're desperate!!!!
GK: Pledge week. It wasn't pretty.
TK: I have a sharp pencil in hand and if we don't get two calls in the next hour, I'm going to stab myself in the cheek.
GK: Every year it gets harder to raise money. I know. I was hired just the week before by a woman named Phoebe Peabody. (BRIDGE) A woman in a brown tweed suit with a button on the label that said, "Membership. Do you have a problem with that?" That and her sensible shoes and her immense purse told me right away she was a public radio development director.
SS: Let me get right to the point. The problem is our tote bags and mugs, Mr. Noir. We need a remake. They're not pulling in people the way they used to.
GK: Where do these tote bags come from, Ms. Peabody?
SS: Our totes are teutonic totes tatted from tents in Trinidad for twenty-two cents apiece.
GK: That's cheap.
SS: The tatted-tent totes are made by truant teens and tiny tots who are well-treated, tutored, tested for tetanus ...
GK: So what happened?
SS: Some tattletale told Nina Totenberg that the truant teens and tiny tots who tatted the teutonic totes lived in tatters and tasted the tents the totes are tatted from and got tooth-tarter.
GK: How did you know it was Totenberg?
SS: Her tattoo.
GK: So, Nina Totenberg twitted you for your Trinidad tote operation because it exploited truant teens and tiny tots in tatters and gave them tooth-tarter, huh?
SS: You'd have thought we tortured them.
GK: So you had to lose the teens and tiny tots and transfer out Trinidad.
SS: Totally. It was all twiddle-twaddle but she told Desmond Tutu and he testified. Thanks to Tutu and Totenberg, Trinidadian tatted tent tote bags were toast. And we had to go to a totebag factory in the Tetons.
GK: Where?
SS: You don't want to know.
GK: Spill it, sister. It'll go a lot easier on you, believe me.
SS: Okay. We get 'em from a totebag factory in Piscacadwadaquoddymoggin, Wyoming.
GK: Piscacadwadaquoddymoggin, huh? What are these Teton totes made of now? Tents?
SS: No. They're tatted from twenty percent terrycloth, 20 percent tulle, 20 percent tweed, 20 percent acetate, and twenty percent taffeta.
GK: In more than one color?
SS: Turquoise, tortoise, terra cotta, taupe, tartan or tutti-frutti.
GK: Tutti-frutti totes from the Tetons, huh? And what about the mugs?
SS: We used to get magnificent mugs from a Mongolian mug mogul in Michigan. Big mugs.
GK: How big?
SS: Mega-mugs.
GK: White, red?
SS: Magnolia. And magenta.
GK: Both colors?
SS: They were magical mega-mugs.
GK: And then someone said that migrant mega-mug makers at the Mongolian mega-mug works were ingesting magnesium.
GK: Who said that?
SS: George McGovern.
GK: How much magnesium did McGovern say the migrant mug makers were ingesting?
SS: A few milligrams. But those few milligrams of magnesium gave the mug makers humongous migraines.
GK: So, to prevent magnesium migraines, the mogul shut down the Michigan mug operation?
SS: Monday.
GK: Why Monday?
SS: It was muggy Monday which magnified the magnesium migraines for the mega-mug makers.
GK: So Nina Totenberg stopped the totes and George McGovern nixed the mugs. Where you getting mugs from now?
SS: Guess.
GK: Piscacadwadaquoddymoggin, huh.
SS: And the Piscacadwadaquoddymoggin mugs aren't magnetic. The Michigan mugs were.
GK: So the membership contributions -
SS: After we switched from Michigan to Piscacadwadaquoddymoggin mugs, pretty meager.
GK: You got a problem, sister.
SS: You're telling me. (BRIDGE)
GK: I told her I'd take it under advisement for the usual fee. Hundred bucks a day plus all the pastrami I could eat. Then I set out to do some research.(MUSIC) I walked down Wabasha past the bars (FOOTSTEPS ON STREET, TRAFFIC) ... Andy's Lounge (SAX) and Donohue's and Hippen's Hipster Haven and The Arnie con Carne and Rick's ... all the gin joints packed full of customers ...
TK (SOUSE): Hey, buddy - are they done fundraising yet? It's driving me nuts.
GK: Look, mister, let me get you some coffee -
TK (SOUSE): It's the phone numbers I can't stand. Over and over and over.
GK: Mister, if you're gonna go to pieces every time there's fundraising on public radio, you're gonna have more bad weeks than good - get a grip - All over town, people seemed to be doing anything they could to stay away from their radios. People were out horseback riding (HOOVES GALLOPING PAST), they were golfing (SWING, CLICK, FLIGHT OF BALL, OOOOHHH OF GALLERY), they were playing tennis (VOLLEY), they were tossing horseshoes (CLANG, WHINNY), they were improving their homes (SAW), watering their lawns (SPRINKLER), anything to stay away from the radio where, meantime, the announcer was going nuts ...
TR (ON RADIO, DISTRAUGHT): Listen, folks. If we don't get two more phone calls in the next twenty-four hours, we're going to have to take Skipper out back and shoot him. (DOG WOOF) It's going to be curtains for Skipper unless you call in ... (DOG WOOF, FADING) Skipper needs you.
GK: It was too much suffering for me, I headed over to the Five Spot. (DOOR OPEN, JINGLE, CLOSE, FOOTSTEPS).
TR (JIMMY): Hey, there, Guy. How's it going?
GK: Not so bad, Jimmy. Not so bad. Long as I stay away from the radio, I'm okay.
TR (JIMMY): Well, you're looking good.
GK: Yeah. I'm at that age all right.
TR (JIMMY): What age is that?
GK: Well, there's childhood. And there's youth. And there's middle age. And then there's: looking good.
TR (JIMMY): Well, you do. Excuse me for pointing it out.
GK: I don't think I look good at all. I been thinking about getting an eyebrow lift. And maybe getting pectoral implants, Jimmy.
TR (JIMMY): In your chest?
GK: That's where the pectorals are, yes, in the chest. You can get 'em for five thousand bucks.
TR: Is that just for one or do you get two for that -
GK: You get two.
TR: What do they implant in 'em?
GK: Old Readers Digests. Hostess Twinkies. I donno. Silicone, ya dummy. What do you think? Awww, never mind. Sorry I brought it up.
TR (JIMMY): Well, I never took notice of your pectorals, before ...
GK: Just never mind.
TR (JIMMY): But now that you mention it, I got a bra here if you want to use it.
GK: You got a bra?
TR (JIMMY): I keep it here for the governor. If he wants to look at it.
GK: Never mind. Forget it.
TR (JIMMY): What can I get you, Guy?
GK: I'd like a pledge week Martini, Jimmy.
TR (JIMMY): That's the one where I put it in the eyedropper ...
GK: And you tie me down and give it to me one drop at a time ...
TR (JIMMY): On your forehead.
GK: That's right. On second thought, just put it in a glass and spit in it.
TR (JIMMY): Okay, one Parisian Martini, coming right up. Speaking of memberships, a lady was in here looking for you. Said she'd be back in half an hour. Here she is right now. (DOOR OPEN, JINGLE, DOOR CLOSE)
GK: Well, well, well. (FOOTSTEPS APPROACH AND STOP) (MUSIC UNDER) What can I do for you?
SS: It's me, Mr. Noir. Phoebe Peabody.
GK: Miss Peabody! I didn't recognize you - in that -
SS: This tiny transparent peignoir with the neckline down to my navel?
GK: Exactly. When I saw you, you wore a tweed suit. And now - this -
SS: We're desperate, Mr. Noir.
GK: Pledge Week not going well, huh?
SS: We know they're out there, Mr. Noir. But why don't they contribute? Why don't they pull their own weight?
GK: Let me tell you, sister. It's the Age of Irony out there. Everybody's trying to be hip. Everybody's deconstructing. Trying to get the angle. You tell people the simplest thing and they want to know what you really mean. You tell people you need money and they look for the subtext. They think it's a joke. A put-on.
SS: But what can we do?
GK: It's simple. Don't ask for money. Take it. Does Disney World do fundraisers? Huh? Do they?
SS: No.
GK: Is there a Disney World telethon where Mickey and Donald and Snow White come on to beg for money?
TR (GOOFY): Hi, folks. This is Goofy. Gawrsh, I hate to ask you but you know, if you folks don't send in a check today, we're gonna 1have to shut down the rides and think of all the kiddoes who'd be disappointed ...
GK: No, Disney World does it the American way. You pay to get in.
SS: But we can't -
GK: Sure, you can. Figure it out. Scramble the signal. Send it over phone lines. Work out a billing system. Put it on credit cards. People don't notice it that way. And charge more. That's the secret. If you don't overcharge, people don't think it's any good.
SS: But that's not how we want to -
GK: Look at pasta in restaurants. You take 15 cents worth of pasta, 50 cents worth of sauce, and if you sell it for six bucks, people turn up their noses - you gotta charge $16 at least - charge $22 and they'll be lined up halfway around the block.
SS: But we can't!
GK: Then don't waste my time, sister. Whenever you're ready to talk, come around and we'll talk.
SS: But if we don't get membership pledges, we won't be able to pay your fee, Mr. Noir.
GK: You can't -
SS: We don't have the money.
GK: An IOU?
SS: No good.
GK: You need people to call, huh?
SS: Yes.
(FOOTSTEPS TOWARD RADIO)
GK: Listen, you people out there, this is Noir talking now. You pony up, you hear me? Tired of carrying some of you deadbeats. Let's give with the gelt, the geech, the scratch, the boodle, the mazuma. Let's share the shekels. Come across with the bread. Pony up, chip in, shell out, hand it over, plunk it down. The happy cabbage, the dinero. You get me? Talking about the hard stuff, none of your chump change and chicken feed, don't welsh on me, you rinkydinks, none of your two-timing, open up those bankrolls, let's see the alfalfa. Come on, kick in, cough up, fork over, put it down where I can see it. The C-notes, G-notes, the big bucks, the do re mi. (THEME)
TR: A dark night in the city that keeps its secrets, where one guy is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions - Guy Noir, Private Eye.
(MUSIC OUT)
(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor